Barrow Point language

Not to be confused with Point Barrow.

Barrow Point
Mutumui
Eibole
Region	Queensland, Australia
Ethnicity	Mutumui
Extinct	by 2005, with the death of Urwunjin Roger Hart[1]
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Paman[2] North Cape York Wik Yalanjic? Barrow Point
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bpt
Glottolog	barr1247
AIATSIS[1]	Y63.1
ELP	Barrow Point

The Barrow Point or Mutumui language, called Eibole, is a recently extinct Australian Aboriginal language. According to Wurm and Hattori (1981), there was one speaker left at the time.^[3]

Classification

The language has one dialect in the north called Ongwara.^[4]

Phonology

Unusually among Australian languages, Barrow Point had at least two fricative phonemes, /ð/ and /ɣ/. They usually developed from *t̪ and *k, respectively, when preceded by a stressed long vowel, which then shortened.^[5]

References

1. Y63.1 Barrow Point at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
2. Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)
3. Barrow Point language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
4. "Mutumui (QLD)". www.samuseum.sa.gov.au. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
5. Dixon, R. M. W.; Dixon, Robert M. W.; Dixon, Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Centre R. M. W. (14 November 2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521473781.

• Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521473780.

Further reading

• John Haviland and Roger Hart's Old Man Fog and the Last Aborigines of Barrow Point, ISBN 1-56098-928-9, a novel about the efforts of Hart, a native of the Cape York peninsula, to record and preserve Barrow Point language and culture.